a saw a documentary that said by 2018 China would have so many cars that they would have to concrete over the equivalent of their entire agricultural production land area and would be consuming enough paper per year to be equivalent to the entire world's forest stock

it's just that your argument makes me think of student-types who won't hear a bad word said against the policies of developing nations because 'we were just as bad'. In this age of relative enlightenment, that argument doesn't wash.